2. Beer is the most widely consumed alcoholic beverage in the world to the extent that in the UK alone, 17.7 billion GBP a year is spent on beer. Beer is most probably the oldest alcoholic beverage to exist as well. It is the third most popular drink after water and tea, which shows why the money spent on it is so much. The process of beer making involves the fermentation of starches, of which the most common source is malt barley. The flavoring in beer is added with the use of hops which adds the bitter taste and also acts as a natural preservative. These processes will be further explained later on in the slide show. An overview of beer
3. The first recorded history of the beverage, beer, was from 6000BC in the written history of ancient Iraq. A prayer to one of the goddesses of ancient Mesopotamia also contained a recipe for beer. The earliest confirmed barley based beer was in around 3400-3000BC in the mountains of Iran. Beer was know in Europe in about 3000BC as well, but would only have been brewed on a domestic scale. Before the industrial revolution, beer would only have been brewed on a domestic scale, yet around 700AD, monasteries in Europe began to sell beer as well. During the industrial revolution, domestic manufacture of beer ceased and was replaced by industrial manufacture. With the development of new technology, which we now take for granted, like thermometers and hydrometers, more precision could be applied to the process of making the beer, and could therefore produce more desirable results. Through the advancement in technology and other aiding factors, the beer industry has become what it is today: a global business of multinational manufacturers, as well as small scale breweries, that manage to turn out a huge 133 billion liters of the beverage a year. History
